This invention relates to protective covers for books, especially telephone books. More particularly, the invention is directed to a telephone book cover having a flexible, protective sheath which wraps around the exterior of the book, and which also has an attached section adapted to receive and enclose one or more sheets or placards. A particularly important feature of the invention is a sleeve through which the rear cover of a telephone book may extend, thereby providing automatic fitting of the cover to phone books of various thicknesses.
Various types of protective covers formed from paper, leather, or plastic have been used to cover and protect books. Depending on the particular use, these covers may be made from opaque material, so as to provide a decorative covering as well as to obscure the identity of the book, or may be of transparent material enabling visual identification of the book when the cover is in place. Generally, the covers comprise a jacket which extends around the exterior periphery of the book, and contain interior pockets into which the front and back covers of the book may be inserted to secure the jacket to the book. In general, these covers have suffered from the disadvantage that they are not easily adaptable to different book thicknesses; i.e., jackets of different sizes must be available to cover different thicknesses of books. This is a particular problem with telephone books, which have pages which are typically 9" wide by 13" high, but which may contain anywhere from less than 100 to more than 1,000 pages. One effort to provide an adjustable cover to adapt to books of various thicknesses is shown in Learned et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,572,767. In this device, the spine portion of the cover has a variable width.
It is important for every household to maintain certain emergency information in a readily accessible, easily remembered location. In general, in virtually every household emergency, it is necessary to place a telephone call to obtain emergency assistance. This call may commonly be placed to a local fire department, police department, hospital, doctor, or even to a neighbor. In recognizing the probability that the telephone will be used to obtain emergency assistance, most telephone companies place certain emergency numbers on or inside the telephone book cover. Accordingly, most homeowners are conditioned to go to the telephone book in an emergency situation. In many emergency situations however, some action must be taken prior to the time that skilled emergency assistance arrives. The ability of a person to provide certain basic lifesaving techniques (e.g., cardiopulmonary resuscitation, relief from choking, cessation of bleeding, emergency childbirth, treatment of drug overdose, and the like) may indeed be the difference between death and survival. While many people have at least limited knowledge of various lifesaving techniques, because they are practiced infrequently most persons do not have adequate recall of even basic emergency techniques. Because of the propensity of a person to associate the telephone with an emergency, the invention provides a method of conveniently attaching information relating to emergency medical techniques to a conventional telephone directory.
The invention provides a jacket for a telephone book or the like which extends substantially around the peripheral covers of the book, and which adjusts to various book thicknesses by having the portion thereof which covers the back telephone book cover comprise a sleeve through which the book cover extends, the width of the sleeve being generally less than the width of the cover. The jacket contains a connected section which is hingedly attached to a forward portion of the front panel of the jacket, and which is adapted to secure a booklet or a series of information-containing pages to the jacket. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a telephone book cover which automatically adjusts to books of various thicknesses. It is another object of the invention to provide a telephone book jacket having means to carry pages of emergency life saving information. It is yet another object of the invention to provide a combination of a telephone book and emergency first aid booklet, and a jacket for protectively enclosing both items. These and other objects of the invention will be clear from the following detailed description of preferred embodiment thereof.